There was a point in the infancy of its popularity that the best hand to be holding in Texas Hold’em was Jack Ten suited, particularly because if it’s two way straight potential and seemingly solid suck-out capabilities when playing to the river.

I find now, during online play that Jack Ten is often played in big pots. Heck, you can even see it being played for big pots in the World Series of Poker, Full Tilt Cash Games, and the Winning Poker Championship.

Personally in the low limit tournaments I play, I will play Jack ten under certain favourable conditions.Outside of these conditions Jack Ten is merely a group five Sklansky hand with an over card to the board, which means its not the absolute nuts, but close enough to call and compete seriously with.

In fact I have recently seen no limit Hold’em players use an aggressive poker style pre-flop, and showdown hands such as Ace King or Ace Queen with reasonable holdings. Against these players it presents a problem if you are holding high cards, since they will be conserve their chips rather than go all in, busting you out rather quickly.

Unless you are dealt a high pocket pair, you should be folding with any face card. Pros sometimes get it wrong, but you will get beat if you call an all in with three riding on flop hands like Ace King or Ace Queen and your poker calculator doesn’t have a say in the matter.

Therefore, unless you are dealt a high pocket pair, and wish to participate in an early tournament, you had better play Jack ten as an underdog. Conversely, against loose opponents you can loosen up your starting hand requirements for it to be a playable hand, and I will often “mixed up” my wish for a high pocket pair with something like K-J or T-J.

High Cards

Virtually as strong as high pocket pairs are, they are still just hands. You will not win the World Series of Poker with them, or even place within the top ten of a satellite event. However, they are and always worth a speculative play against strong opponents.

First off, high cards are not unbeatable hands. Phil Helmuth is known to take a small chipshot straight on the flop, and win a million dollars. I could also recall him blowing away a $100 raise with 8-2 off suit. However, his willingness to get paid off with junk taught us a valuable lesson. If he could do it, then anyone can make big calls on the flop with anything.

If I have a high pocket pair, I will call an all in if there isn’t much in the pot already. Much of the time there won’t be, however, and calling based on pure pot odds is risky. We don’t always have to have premium hands to play these types of hands, since we often have the luxury of drawing to a better hand.

When high pockets are on the flop, I will go ahead and continuation bet, or raise if there is a lot of action. Since these are our only two cards, we have a good chance of hitting the set and earning a small return for our initial investment. To remain in contention for the high position, we are going to have to do a bit of betting of our own.

When our hand is strong, we are quite proud of it. Since it’s unlikely we’ll be called, we will hedge our raises with times when we are up against “deposit 20 bonus 30 to 5x” cards. These are cards whose Ace or King will see the flop and destroy our hand. If we have five or six times the big blind in chips, we will rarely be challenged.

On the other hand, if we have less than five times the big blind in chips, then we are much more likely to get called. Such would be an over-bet by our stacked opponent.

There are situations where we can call all the way or if we have a smaller stack to compete anyway. These are exactly the situations where we want to have the best hand. Knowing this beforehand hardly makes us audacious players.

Be accordingly and be prepared to fold recalistically, as the cards will fall against you.

Fold with less than premium hands when in danger of being outdrawn.

Always bluff on the river if we give ourselves any chance.

Beware of overbetting. Realistically speaking, we almost never have the best hand on the river.

The exception to this rule would be if we made a paired flop. Then our Harrington style would call any bet with a decent hand ten or higher.